Ben Gates: [after he and Riley rescued Abigail from Ian's truck] You all right?
Abigail Chase: No, those - those lunatics...
Ben Gates: You're not hurt, are you?
Abigail Chase: YOU'RE ALL LUNATICS!
Ben Gates: You hungry?
Abigail Chase: What?
Ben
Gates: Are you all right?
Riley Poole: Still a little on-edge from being shot at but I'll be okay, thanks for asking.
Abigail Chase: Yeah, well I'm not all right! Those men have the Declaration of Independence!
Riley Poole: SHE LOST IT?
Ben Gates: They don't have it.
[He pulls the
Declaration out to show her]
Ben Gates: See? Okay? Now could you please stop shouting?
Abigail Chase: [She reaches for it, but he pulls it away] Give me that!
Ben Gates: You're still shouting, and it's really starting to annoy. You would do well, Dr. Chase, to be a little more civilized in this instance.
Abigail
Chase: If this is the real one, what did they get?
Ben Gates: A souvenir. I thought it'd be a good idea to have a duplicate, turns out I was right. I actually had to pay for the souvenir and the real one, so you owe me $35, plus tax.
Riley Poole: Genius.
Abigail Chase: Who were those men?
Ben
Gates: Just the guys we warned you were going to try to steal the Declaration.
Riley Poole: And you didn't believe us!
Ben Gates: We did the only thing we could do to keep it safe.
Abigail Chase: Verdammt! Give me that!
Ben Gates: You know something? You're shouting again.
Riley
Poole: Pretty sure she was swearing too.
Ben Gates: Well, we probably deserved that.
Riley Poole: It's a big blue-ish green man... with a strange-looking goatee... I'm guessing that's significant.
[hugs the statue]
Riley Poole: [leaving Abigail's office after unsuccessfully trying to convince her about potential theft the Declaration of Independence] If it's any consolation, you had me convinced.
Ben Gates: It's not.
Riley Poole: I was thinking, what if we go public, plaster the story all over the internet? It's not like we have our reputations
to worry about. Although, I don't think that's exactly gonna scare Ian away.
Ben Gates: [standing in front of the Declaration of Independence] 180 years of searching, and I'm three feet away. Of all the words written here about freedom, there's a line here that's at the heart of all the others. "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same
Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and provide new Guards for their future security."
[pause]
Ben Gates: People don't talk that way anymore.
Riley Poole: Beautiful, huh? I have no idea what you said.
Ben Gates: It means if
there's something something wrong, those who have the ability to take action have the responsibility to take action.
[pause]
Ben Gates: I'm gonna steal it.
Riley Poole: [laughs] What?
Ben Gates: I'm gonna steal the Declaration of Independence.
[walks away]
Riley Poole: [laughs, then
follows Ben] Uh, Ben?
Butcher Lady: If you're not a steak, you don't belong here.
Abigail Chase: I'm just trying to hide from my ex-husband.
Butcher Lady: [sees Shaw] Who, Baldie?
Abigail Chase: Yes.
Butcher Lady: Honey, stay as long as you like.
Abigail Chase: Huh, thank you.
Butcher Lady: [to Shaw] You want something?
[leaning on the counter panting, while looking around for Abigail]
Butcher Lady: Do you want something?
Shaw: [unnerved] Shut up.
[leaves]
Butcher Lady: [to Abigail] I see why you left him.
Abigail Chase: [Ben Gates is trying to figure out how to get the Silence Dogood letters without letting his dad know he stole the Declaration of Independence] You have the original Silence Dogood letters? Steal those too?
Ben Gates: They're scans of the orginals, quiet please.
Abigail Chase: How did you get scans?
Ben
Gates: I know the person who has the originals, now shush.
Abigail Chase: Why do you need them?
Ben Gates: She really can't shut her mouth, can she?
[Offering her the Declaration]
Ben Gates: Look, I will let you hold this if you promise to *shut up*, please!
Riley Poole: [after Ben decides to steal the Declaration] This is... huge.
[pause]
Riley Poole: Prison... huge. You are gonna go to prison. You know that, right?
Benjamin Franklin Gates: Yeah, probably.
Riley Poole: Well... that would... bother most people.
[trying to find the password to the Preservation Room]
Ben Gates: It's Valley Forge.
Riley Poole: Valley... I don't have that on my computer.
Ben Gates: It's Valley Forge. She pressed E and L twice.
[typing password]
Ben Gates: Valley Forge was a turning point in the Revolutionary War.
[Access is granted]
Riley Poole: Can I marry your brain?
Riley Poole: Okay, Ben, pay attention. I've brought you to the Library of Congress. Why? Because it's the biggest library in the world. Over 20 million books. And they're all saying the same exact thing: Listen to Riley. What we have here is an entire layout of the Archives: sort of builder's blueprints. We've got construction manuals, phone lines, water, and sewage. It's all
right here. Now, when the Declaration is on display, it is surrounded by guards... and video monitors... and little families from Iowa... and little kids on their eighth-grade field trip. And underneath an inch of bulletproof glass is an army of sensors and heat monitors that will go off if someone gets too close with a high fever. Now, when it's not on display, it is lowered into a
four-foot-thick concrete, steel-plated vault that happens to be equipped with an electronic combination lock and biometric access-denial systems.
Ben Gates: You know, Thomas Edison tried and failed nearly 2,000 times to develop the carbonized cotton-thread filament for the incandescent light bulb.
Riley Poole: Edison?
Ben
Gates: And when asked about it, he said "I didn't fail; I found out 2,000 ways how not to make a light bulb," but he only needed one way to make it work.
[sets down a book in front of Riley]
Ben Gates: The Preservation Room. Enjoy. Go ahead. Do you know what the preservation room is for?
Riley Poole: Delicious jams and jellies?
Ben Gates: No, that's where they clean, repair, and maintain all the documents and their storage housings when they are not on display or in the vault. Now, when the case needs work, they take it out of the vault and directly across the hall and into the Preservation Room. The best time for us or Ian to steal it would be during the gala this weekend when the guards are distracted
by the VIPs upstairs; but we'll make our way to the Preservation Room, where there is much less security.
Riley Poole: Well... uh... Ian... Preservation, hmm. Well, this might be possible.
Ben Gates: It might.